Gaining access to the IT systems is confusing - too many points of contact to get access and then to get the right level of access and finally who to ask for help when problems occur dependent on where the issue is.

Advice to Management

Get a one point of contact who will own your request until completion rather than being passed from team to team

Personal experience - Very competitive contract rates although it was a position of need. Extremely flexible working throughout a variety of transport and health issuse, I was able to still contribute just as much from home as I could at the office, in terms of work at least.

Cons

-Location/Commute depending on where you live
-Usual things a government organisation sees, budget squeezes, competition between tech vendors, lack of talented permanent employees for various reasons. No news here for anyone with public sector experience but maybe something for Graduates or anyone with only private sector experience to keep in mind.
- Nothing at all that could be considered a major problem.

Advice to Management

Thumbs up from me to both the project managers I worked with as well as the numerous developers, UX designers, product owners and all the rest. Also helped out some other areas of the organisation and really don't have a bad thing to say.

Excellent supposed mission - if only some of the staff knew what it was like to a startup or early stage SME!

Cons

Where to start?!
The CEO that came in around 2014/15 was out of her depth, but felt that she was royalty. She remained too remote to ever understand the organisation and ended up simply slavishly adhering to the whims of the sponsoring government department.
A lack of transparency in appointments saw bizarre promotions - particularly for those close to the CEO or whos faced fitted, irrespective of ability.
The... remote CEO and weak HR department (whose sole purpose was to obey, rather than challenge, management, hushing up grievances, bullying cases and whistle-blowing reports, paying off the guilty with 5-figure sums, while sacking the complainants.
A woeful shower, particularly given that there are many talented individuals within the organisation.

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Advice to Management

Listen to experienced staff - value their experience and insight and use it to develop the organisation into what it should be. Do the same with the companies the organisation is supposed to support, most of whom bemoan the arduous grant application process and opaque application assessment process.

If you're working in the innovation areas directly, there's a lot of flexibility and you basically design your own job. No-one's checking up on you, so there's a high degree of trust involved. The annual leave allowance and additional expenses allowances are pretty good

Cons

- The organisation has been through constant change, sometimes reversing direction, and with no clear vision of the organisation's future. The culmination of this is that it's been absorbed into UKRI which is tragic.
- The staff haven't been well engaged in any of the changes and there has been any external support to manage the change or culture.
- The culture has elements of machismo and hero worship (except... what heroes there are, aren't in the leadership team). As a result, staff, many of whom are highly experienced, get treated as junior hires.
- Bullying is rife and the bullies seem to be rewarded with promotion
- Career development is almost non-existent, except for the favoured few and it's far from clear why they are favoured
At least partly as a result, wellbeing scores are shockingly low. In fact, people are having breakdowns and going off sick, long term
- It's becoming ever more bureaucratic

How long have you got...! Promoting incapable people to authority positions. The rot starts from the top-turf out the corrupt rubbish at the top and weeding out the lazy so and so’s will follow-paving the way for a more productive business.

Advice to Management

Sack yourselves! Promote people who work hard and treat people with respect. Be fair. Discipline lazy people.

- Great development opportunities for those willing to work hard and apply themselves
- A warm, friendly and open environment
- Great flexibility for staff
- Lots of training opportunities
- A majority of managers open to mentoring and supporting staff with their career development
- Highly engaged colleagues, passionate about their work
- A range of policies and processes to support colleagues facing... difficulties (both in and out of work)
- Rewarding hard-work and a positive, can-do approach
- Demonstrable career development (if you are willing to take feedback, grow and improve)
- A real purpose that supports the UK economy

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Cons

- A fair amount of change (not controlled by Innovate UK)
- Employee's based in different locations can mean not seeing certain colleagues a lot

Advice to Management

- Share best practice with one another, some exceptional managers with really great approaches that could be valuable to all